El Bulli: the gruelling tasks behind the famed culinary creations

Each year some 3,000 people apply for the privilege of spending six months in the El Bulli kitchen as stagiaires – technically the word means "interns" or "apprentices," but it translates metaphorically as "kitchen slaves".

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Staff work in the kitchen of El Bulli preparing the night's dishesPhoto: PAUL GROVER

Only 32 are selected and they travel from across the globe, at their own expense, to work for 14-hours at a stretch in exchange for one meal a day and a room in a flat in the tourist resort of Roses, 100 miles north of Barcelona.

Lisa Abend, who tracked the experiences of the 2010 intakes, revealed the tasks they were expected to endure in her new book "The Sorcerer's Apprentices: A Season at El Bulli," published by Simon & Schuster in the UK last month.

The acolytes have often endured much to get a place in the famed kitchen.

One such intake was Korean chef Myungsun Jang – known as "Luke" – who discovered his passion for food while working as an army cook. He saved $15,000, slept rough and hitchhiked across Europe before finally pitching up at El Bulli where he spent three nights sleeping at the door and begging for a job.

Another was a Canadian chef who sent 80 applications before he was finally accepted.

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When they arrive for their six-month stint, the trainees are told they will be ejected if they are late more than once. They then start what Abend describes as: "six months of often boring, physically exhausting and utterly unpaid labour."

The first task is to get down on their hands and knees and scrub every one of the pebbles from the car park to the door of the restaurant.

"The idea is remove the expectations they have of working side by side with the culinary genius creating new dishes," she explains.

Other tasks include the preparation of his trademark spherified olives, olive juice magically reconstituted in the shape of an olive, which require the purée to be sieved by hand 15 times.

El Bulli's "lentils" are made from clarified butter and sesame paste painstakingly dripped through a syringe into iced water.

"The lentils take forever to prepare," writes Miss Abend, "causing hands and arms to cramp from holding the syringe."

The ravioli shells are ghostly delicate circles cut from a translucent sheet made of Parmesan "serum" set with a jellifying agent.

All tasks are performed for weeks on end and must be undertaken in complete silence.